Restoring a community legacy after the Palisades Fire: Gladstones Malibu

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All right, guys, reminder here today.

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Minimum is required.

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It’s hardhat, safety
glasses, respirators, N95,

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vest, pants, safety boots.

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Always be aware of slip, trip,
and fall hazards.

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And always remember
to stay hydrated on the job site.

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You know, there’s a lot of fires
around here right now.

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Very dry.

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Even though it’s raining today,

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make sure the crew takes proper breaks.

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They have proper hydration
and they’re good to go.

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Palisade Fire
ignited on January 7th and 2025,

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and it tore through over 2300 acres
in the Pacific Palisades.

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The winds picked up really bad.

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There was a few days where the winds
were up to 100 miles an hour,

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and it just spread.

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The embers went everywhere.

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And after weeks of firefighting, the blaze
was finally contained on January 31st.

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But now the focus shifts to rebuilding.

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You know, restoring homes, businesses
and the community itself.

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We are watching TV,
we are keeping monitoring the whole time.

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We saw the backside of the building
burning, and we figured we are 100% done.

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And then,

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the smoke blacked everything out
so we couldn’t get any more information.

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Even the L.A. Times reported that we were burned.
Eater L.A., everyone else ran with it.

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They said “oh, L.A.

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Times said Restaurant Gladstones

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burned to the ground”,
so we thought we were done.

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Probably the next day or even late
the next evening that we found out

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the restaurant wasn’t burned down, that
we were still here.

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Gladstones,

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they got very lucky, actually.

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They got affected by smoke, soot, and ash,
which basically

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needs to be cleaned.

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This north side of the building at Gladstones Restaurant

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The structure is totally charred.

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In order to replace this building we have to get a permit first.

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Because of the burnt charred debris.

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As you can see inside

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everything in here is charred and burned.

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Same thing here is the Ice Maker Room is what we call it.

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You have a refrigerator here, ice maker there.

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You have some electrical there.

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So all of the electrical panels have to be replaced.

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Same thing with the roof, has to be replaced.

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as well as the mechanical,

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mechanical is what we call the HVAC units.

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All have to be removed and replaced

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because it’s so damaged from the fire.

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So I met Mark Finley.

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He met us with our insurance adjusters.

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I spent about the next week with Mark

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almost every day we were in the car
and coming up here driving together.

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It took us about 3 or 4 days
to get into the restaurant.

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I really got to see how he worked,
and he got this whole team in here,

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way ahead of schedule.

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We were on the ground

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days and days before other people were
even getting their first walkthroughs.

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Basically when you’re doing a cleaning of the
structure, you do a two tiered process.

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The first step is to HEPA vacuum

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the structure and the contents.

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The second is to do a wet wipe
with an unsmoke, unsoots, solution.

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And we set up air scrubbers
and also use a product

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called Odor-X, Odor Block
to help with the smell and the odor.

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As you can see over here, what we do is set containments.

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This helps us contain the areas that we’re cleaning
so we don’t get cross-contamination.

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So typically what we do is start in the back of the building

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and work our way forward. And once the
area is cleaned we seal it off with the containments.

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We keep moving forward, that way we don’t cross contaminate

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or bring soot and ash into the areas that have
already been cleaned.

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We’re going to be down 3 to 6 months,
we can’t say for sure

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because of the burn in the back.

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We do have to go through plan check.

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We’re really just trying to get it up
and running as soon as possible

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so we can start serving.
There’s a lot of people working out here.

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There’s a lot of work crews
and first responders

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that don’t really have anywhere to eat.

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There’s a lot of people
visiting their houses in the community

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and there’s nothing there for them, we’re
just trying to figure out what’s next.

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I don’t really know for sure,
but once we do get open,

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we’ll be able to bring people back
in a timely manner.

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The fact that this building didn’t burn down,
only sustained soot and ash damage,

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We can restore it.

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If there’s more significant charred
or burned areas,

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we would probably have to do a total loss,
but luckily for a building like this,

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we just restore.

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So it’s basically we do, fire, smoke,
soot and

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ash and odor control, clean
it and make sure the smell is gone

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so we can reopen the restaurant
to the public soon.

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We have a lot of smoke damage,
a lot of fire,

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soot all over all the equipment
and electronics.

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So there’s a lot going on in there,

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we still have a chance to rebuild,
and that’s the best thing.